


Old Wounds, New Beginnings

by Attorney C (arh581958)



Series: Atonement [4]
Category: Suits (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Domestic, Alternate Universe - Future, Domestic, Domestic Bliss, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Flashbacks, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Future Fic, Husbands, M/M, Married Couple, Married Sex, MarveyFicChallenge #60 - Flashback, Memories, Memory Loss, Mike POV, Non-Linear Narrative, Old Married Couple, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-25
Updated: 2016-10-25
Packaged: 2018-08-24 10:47:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8369347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arh581958/pseuds/Attorney%20C
Summary: Harvey and Mike have been married for years, and those years have finally caught up to Harvey. Mike, in an effort to brings his husband's memory back, must tackle some old wounds to rediscover how they started over. (Or: Reminiscor: Mike's POV from White Picket Fence, and then something more.)





	

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [White Picket Fence](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7407853) by [Attorney C (arh581958)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/arh581958/pseuds/Attorney%20C). 



> This follows the tone of the previous three works in the series. It is not, I repeat, not meant to be part of the Atonement Trilogy _but_ it occurs in the same universe. I really wanted to share my headcannon of how Marvey gets from _Down the Highway Blues_ to _White Picket Fence_. You do not necessarily have to read everything to understand it but it will help. 
> 
> Written for Marvey Fic Challenges # 60, and because I'm trash for old people still romantic and in-love. 
> 
> **Not beta read**. Open for Volunteers.
> 
> PPS. I did not _italicize_ the jumps from present to past and vice-versa. Please be guided by the verbs used. :D

 

They sit on the lounge chair. Mike rests his back against the curvy slope while Harvey reclines between his legs, back against his chest. The kids are playing in the pool, mindless of them. This type of affection isn’t the norm but Mike think some type of physical affection would be best. He knows now that the Harvey in his arms isn’t _his_ Harvey.

This Harvey is that of Mike’s nearly a dozen years ago.

He sees it now after he looked—in the way Harvey stared at him incredulously when walking into his home office, to the way Harvey tried to hide the problem, and the look in Harvey’s eyes when he teased this morning.

This Harvey isn’t his husband—yet—and, from the looks of it, not for quite a while.

“What’s the last thing you remember?”

“Mike…”

Harvey stiffens in his arms, a familiar gesture. It tells Mike that Harvey was either too stubborn or prideful to admit something wrong. They’ve been married for a little over a decade. All those years come in handy when figuring out Harvey Specter.

Mike presses closer, arms loose over Harvey’s shoulders.

“Just tell me, Harvey, it’ll be easier. I promise.” To go even further, he kisses the salt-and-pepper hairs and waits. This isn’t the first time that this happened. Harvey tends to _forget_ things. Not the essential ones but _memories_. Still, in every episode, he always remembers their family, their kids, their marriage. It’s different this time around.

Harvey eventually relaxes in his arms. “A few days after you told me to leave you… Did that happen? Or am I making it up? I’m not sure anymore. I visited you inside but you told me that you didn’t want us to be an us anymore. You broke it off, Mike.” He sounds so broken, like an empty shell of a man, when he said it.

Mike’s heart breaks a little. He feels for this man, a man he knew not too long ago and understands how much trust Harvey’s placing on him to admit the terrifying truth.

“Did I say something wrong?”

The tears fall on their own. He can’t stop it. They’re on a free fall. He hates himself for walking away—twice from the man who holds his heart.

“No,” he sobs, “I just… you haven’t gone that far back… in a while. It’s true. That happened.”

Harvey turns around and takes Mike’s face into his hands. Large warm hands touch Mike with a familiarity that never faded. Even when he forgot, even when he couldn’t remember, Harvey would always touch Mike with love—like Mike is special— _because_ Mike is his special person. He holds Mike now with that same love written all over his face.

“And all this? How did we get here?”

Mike chokes on his words. Harvey might have forgotten but _he_ remembers. It’s up there in his head. Because of his eidetic memory, it’s there forever. He remembers that ugly motel room with the small prison-like window, the door hanging off its hinges, and the even gaudy green lava lamp. He remembers because—

“You came back,” he says, covering Harvey’s hands with his own. “You came back for me.”

“I can’t forget,” Harvey whispers, bringing their foreheads together. The gesture is familiar to them. It’s something Harvey does—whether consciously or unconsciously—to bring more of their bare skin together as if it somewhat anchors him to the current reality. “Tell me, Mike, please, I want to remember.”

So, Mike tells him.

***

Harvey chased him; that much, he remembered. Then, Harvey asked to marry him.

“Yes, but not yet,” he answered. Harvey pulled back, looking at him in shock, arms tight around his waist. He saw the look, the question, the thoughts running through Harvey’s mind. Tenderly, his shaking fingers brushed back Harvey’s bangs. The words came pouring out of him.

“I _want_ to marry you but not yet. I—” he bit his lower lip, “I want to marry you when we’re equals again. Will you… will you wait?”

“Then keep this,” Harvey insisted pulling out the unornate silver band, “Keep this a as a promise. Promise me, Mike, that you’re not going to run away again. I—I can’t—I don’t ever want to think that would happen again. Damn it, Mike, don’t do that again. Just—” He pressed his face into Mike’s neck, inhaling as if it was his last breath. “Just promise me that you’ll stay.”

 Mike took the ring and slipped it on. “Okay,” he nodded, “I promise.”

***

Starting over wasn’t easy. Harvey had a firm in shambles that needed to be rebuilt. Mike had his whole life in a million piece. While Harvey took over Jessica’s position as managing partner, Mike began picking up the remnants of his past life and packing it away to start a new.

Mike held the thick barely bound book in his hands. Thirteen months, twelve days, and eleven hours, and this was the only thing that kept him sane. 

“Harvey, can I, uh—you busy?”

Harvey, the newly minted managing partner of Pearson Specter Litt, looked up from the files he was reviewing on the kitchen table. He raised an elegant eyebrow. “What is it, Mike?”

For a moment, Mike didn’t want to bother him. Harvey been coming him with more work with each passing month. Rachel, despite being one of the firm’s top associates, was nowhere near at par with Mike’s previous level of efficiency. Neither of them wanted Mike back into the fire. It was a joint decision.

“I want you to look at something,” answered Mike. He shifted from foot to foot under Harvey’s intense gaze. It’d been so long since Harvey really _looked_ at him without the weight of his desertion looming over them. Scars of that weekend were slowly fading, but not quite gone yet.

“What is it?”

“It’s… it’s just something.”

 Harvey was incredulous. “Alright, bring it here.”

Loose pieces of sheet paper were drawn close by a flimsy piece of string, the front marked in various colors of ink and scratchy chicken writing. It didn’t look like much but it was _his_ , and that was the most important thing.

_A Legal Mind_

 “What’s this?”

A long moment passed before Mike answered.

“Before I went in, you asked me something. Do you remember it?”

Harvey continue to stare, expression blank. Mike took a long breath. The tension between them was palpable.

“You asked me what I would have been if I wasn’t a lawyer. I didn’t answer you back then. Do you remember now?” He bit his lip, waiting, until Harvey lowered his head in the faintest of nods. “I didn’t know what I _could_ have been aside from being a lawyer because it’s the only thing I’ve ever wanted. Then I realized that it was a story—my story. So, I wrote it all down… from the very first day—that interview in Chilton—up to the sentencing. I—I had to do something… it—I had to keep my head in there.”

Recognition slowly crept into Harvey’s expression. “You—everything?”

“No,” Mike shook his head, “Not everything. Just the important parts. I—I was afraid of going insane inside there. What if it had all been a dream? What if I was making it up? Having a mind like mine—it’s great but it’s scary, you know? Sometimes I was scared that it was getting to much. That it was too big even for me to handle. So—so I wrote—I wanted to keep these memories, you know? I didn’t know if my mind would be able to keep up with me forever.”

Harvey took the mismatch sheets of paper and put them on top of his files. “Mike,” he said, fingers encircling Mike’s slim wrist. “Come here.” Pushing back the chair, he coaxed Mike to the other side of the table until their knees bumped into one another.

“Don’t do something stupid again.”

The words hung over their heads.

“I—”

“Mike, that’s not—Mike.”

“I’m not running away again, Harvey. I’ve had enough of that.”

Mike bent down and pressed their foreheads together. He clambered onto the chair, pressing close into Harvey’s space, overwhelmed by the need to be close. Pajama bottoms rubbed against wrinkled slacks. Up close, Harvey smelled of expensive cologne, aftershave, and scotch. He loved the way that Harvey smelled. They needed this after everything they’ve gone through.

“I love you,” Harvey whispered, tugging on Mike’s collar so that they can press their mouths together.

The kiss turned hotter, deeper—a ballet of tongues. Harvey dragged Mike onto him, closer, and Mike went willingly, molding their bodies together. This felt good. This felt better than good—it felt _right_. Mike moaned into the kiss, hands freeing Harvey’s gelled hair, feeling the sticky slickness through his fingers. This, right now, meant freedom.

“I love you too,” Mike panted back, out of breath. His chest threatened to burst with what he felt, mind running in a million direction but none of them to flee. He wanted to stay, right here and now, in Harvey’s arms. This was where he was meant to be—with Harvey. “Let’s go to bed.”

Clothes were thrown off along the way, one piece for every step they took. Buttons flew in every direction. Harvey’s tie snagged onto the ceiling fan. Slacks and pajama bottoms were left just outside the bedroom door. Mike’s top strewn over the vanity chair.  Socks thrown over the lampshade. They undressed each other with unhurried efficacy that by the time they reached the bed nothing but skin slid against skin above the sheets.

They made love that night.

Mike remembered all of it; from the dim yellow-orange lights the illuminated the bedroom to the high-thread count sheets of _their_ bed, the way Harvey kissed his neck, collar, and shoulders like he was the most previous thing in the world, and the words “remember me” being whispered onto his flushed skin like a devout prayer.

“I will, I will,” he promised back, “Harvey, come on, make love to me.”

 _Remember us_.

***

In their house, in Riversdale, New York, an older Mike pulls a much older Harvey into their room. The party is done and over. Their boys are tucked into bed. Now, it’s time for them to follow. Mike strips them both, starting with Harvey’s shirt. The polo comes off and Mike traces the tanned collar bones with his lips. His fingers ghosting over Harvey’s sides. His shirt and pants follow in succession. He kneels then peels of Harvey’s denim jeans.

Harvey sways at the movement, hands landing on Mike’s shoulder.

“I’ve got you,” the younger man says, “I’ve got you, Harvey, hold onto to me.”

Once they’ve naked, Mike moves Harvey to the bed, atop the pale blue sheets which took forever for them to decide on. It’s thick and soft under them. Harvey sits with shit back against the head board, agape. Mike smiles, kissing him on the lips.

“I’ve going to carve myself into every inch of you,” he promises, licking up Harvey’s neck, fingers laced together. “I’ll mark every fiber of your being—” he nips at Harvey’s jaw, “—every cell,” he bites down on Harvey’s collar. He moves to straddled his husband and takes them both into a loose fist. Their eyes meet for one tense moment then Mike grinds down.

“Mike!”

“That’s right.” Mike smiles, grinding down again. “I want you to only remember my name.”

Harvey, on instinct, reaches for their bedside drawer. It rattles and shakes. Mike chuckles and grabs the bottle of lube for him. He’s got that mischievous grin on his face as he hands it over.

“Open me up, love,” he says, nipping Harvey’s lips. Despite the instruction, he moves down, trailing wet slopping kisses down Harvey’s torso, chest, and thighs. Harvey shudders underneath him. He spreads Harvey’s legs open so he can stay inside. “Get me ready while I get you ready. It’s been a long time since I’ve had this bad boy in my mouth.”

“Fu—uck!” Harvey’s toes curl as Mike takes him down to the root.

Mike wiggles his ass in the air. He works on Harvey’s shaft and balls. The feel of it, the taste of it, the scent of it—everything about Harvey makes his head heady. Mike loves it. He loves the power of having his husband coming undone underneath him. Two kids, two jobs, and a dog between them, they barely have time for this anymore, and neither of them are getting any younger.

“Shh,” he coaxes, running his hands up and down Harvey’s thighs. “Just let me, mmkay? I missed this. Fuck, Harvey, feels like I haven’t had you in forever. Gonna fuck myself on your cock nice and slow. You going to hold it in for me, big boy?”

Harvey shudders underneath him. “M—mike, _fuck_ , don’t tease.”

Tease is all Mike does. He licks up the thick angry vein underneath. It pulses between his pressed lips. His hands cup the girth that he can’t take it, fingers brushing against the swollen ball sacs. Harvey’s heady scent fills his nostrils—dark, musky, with the faint hint of citrus sunblock that Harvey wears for outdoor barbequing.

 _I love you_ , he says in every touch. There are days when Harvey perfectly remembers everything but old age has finally started to catch up, and there are days when Harvey’s not completely his Harvey. Mike’s learned to cope. He copes because he knows that there’s never a Harvey that doesn’t love him. He feels it deep down to his core—even _this_ Harvey, one that bore the pain of abandonment two times over.

 _I’m sorry_ , he tries to communicate. It’s an apology for all those years ago that this current Harvey feels.

“Mike.” Hands grip his hair, pulling him up. Harvey’s staring at him with worried brown eyes—almost unfairly boyish on his face. “You feel like you went away for a second though.”

Mike blushed. “I did. I was—I was remembering something.”

“Tell me?”

***

Two whole years—two endlessly long tiring years of ceaselessly scrutinizing his work. He peddled his biography from publisher to publisher until somebody finally agreed to publish him—a culmination of his time in prison and how he made the most of it. Mike met with Korsh Publishing Agent, Gene Klein, on a dry autumn’s afternoon and signed the dotted line.

“Harvey! Harvey!” Mike practically ran the whole way to Harvey’s office, barely stopping to see Donna at her new and improved Executive Assistant’s desk.

“Well, well, the prodigal son returns,” Donna said with a smile. “Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes? How long has it been? Are here to pick up your hubby? No, wait, don’t answer that. Of course, you are. Isn’t it too early for a booty call, Mike? It’s only four in the afternoon! Oh, what a scandal! Office love. Hot man-on-man office sex in the boss’ office. Are you gonna reenact any Maggie Gyllenhaal Secretary scenes? Kinky. Kinky!”

“Hey, it hasn’t been that long. Just a few years. Give or take.” Mike shook his head, blushing. “No, thank you. I leave the sexy business in the office to you, Donna. Harvey and I stay strictly out of the office. That’s what we decided on. Is he—” he tried to peer over the privacy blinds but failed to see beyond Donna’s red hair, “—is he with a client? I’ve got—I’ve got something I wanna tell him.”

“Still,” said Donna, moving to hug him. “It finally feels like home again. You going to stay now?”

Mike pulled away. “No, not this time. That’s actually what I came by.”

Donna eyed him like tigress, eyebrows shooting to her hairline. “Oh my god! When did he propose!?” She jumped out of her seat and dragged him behind the desk, hands on his shoulder. “Alright, Ross, doesn’t mean that you don’t work here means you get to keep secrets from me. Spill. I want details. When—how—where this proposal happened, and why was I not informed? How could you?! After all the times that I had your back, you—u!”   

“Enough with the water works, Donna.” Harvey cut her off. He leaned against the freshly opened door, thin panel glass digging into a dark charcoal covered bicep. His smile lit up his entire face when his gaze fell on Mike. “Did I forget something? Are we supposed to have a date today?”

Mike shook his head and shimmied out of Donna’s booby trap. “Nah, dude. I was in the area and I wanted to see you. I noticed that you _didn’t_ take Jessica’s old office. You gave it to Louis. Kudos to you.” He whistled. “I see that you made yourself an even bigger office though. Can’t imagine how he took that.”

Harvey shrugged. “I have him his own tea set,” he said, making Mike chuckle. “Come inside, I’ll give you grand tour. It’s the only thing that’s changed since you’ve been gone. I’ll put on tea because I’m fancy like that. I know you like me when I try to show off.”

“I do not!” Mike rolled his eyes, playfully punching Harvey on the arm. “Hey, Donna, mind shutting off that intercom for a few minutes for all times sake?” Donna made a big show of pressing the red button and pulling the plug. “Thanks. I owe you.”

“I better be the maid of honor!” She shot back.

“So…?” Harvey closed the door behind them. He was right; the inside of his office did look better than Jessica’s it was a little more _Harvey_ with the records collection—now larger than before—and the old record player in the corner. Several basketballs and baseballs lined the windows. The most surprising thing of all for Mike was a solitary photo on top of the dark wooden desk.

“Is that…?”

Harvey picked it up and handed it to Mike, nodding. “I thought I’d get it framed.” It was a picture of them at the Las Vegas casino opening five years prior, when Mike was still a junior associate and they were still in their not-relationship phase. The reality of that fact took a moment to sink down.

“No way… all this time?” His hands shakily held the frame. “That was— _years ago_ , Harvey!”

“We burned like a flame, fiery hot and untamable,” Harvey whispered, closing the gap between them. “I didn’t know it back then but when I saw this picture of us while you were away—I just knew. The way I looked at you back then and the way I look at you at present. It’s not just lust that’s overflowing. I wanted to keep you—I want to keep you—from the very first time in my old office when we made love.”

“Yes,” Mike said, putting the photo down and wrapping his arms around Harvey. “I felt that too.” He leaned up, pressing their lips together. Just like the memory of their first time, it was slow and steady but the passion was no less intense. It coursed through their veins, thick and viscous, filling up their lungs with a once unfathomable feeling that they both could understand now.

“I love you.” The words were filled with so much meaning. Nearly a decade, they’ve been playing this game and they should at least work on getting to the next level.

“Yes,” Mike said again, looking Harvey in the eyes and saying everything that his throat was too congested to say. “Yes.” An eternity held within a second passed before Harvey finally caught on. Mike couldn’t help but grin ear-to-ear when understanding registered on Harvey’s face. “Do you understand me now, Harvey? I’m saying yes.”

Harvey, in his excitement, lifted Mike into the air.

The younger man yelped, “Harvey!”

The joy on Harvey’s face was unlike anything he’d ever seen before—bright, young, and magnificent. It made all of Harvey’s smiles up to the present pale in comparison—his brown eyes glinted with light, his pearly white teeth were all on display, and the numerous laugh lines accented his whole face. At that moment, Harvey looked like the happiest man alive—except, maybe for Mike.

They were going to get married, build a house, and start a family.

It was their time for new beginnings.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I hope it wasn't too bad. I've been busy with RL. OMG I got my first real job!!! So, I don't have too much time to write now. Huhu. This will be one of the last few that I've been working on since I started. 
> 
> ***
> 
> As always, if you liked or enjoyed this fic, you should know what to do. **Comment/Kudos/Bookmarks** are always appreciated by this author. :) 
> 
> If you have a prompt or an idea, you can [INSPIRE ME](http://arh581958.tumblr.com/submit) on tumblr. Or [TALK TO ME](http://arh581958.tumblr.com/ask)


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